Guardsman
Tactical Analysis * White Knights: Rebelling against the King they once promised to serve, the Guardsmen have defected to GLA-affiliated warlords and are boosting their power thanks to the long military training. They are equipped with slightly outdated but powerful Browning Automatic Rifles. * Call 1-2-3 for Shells: They can also use their radios, originally used for communicating between regiments to ensure the King's safety, to call for mortar strikes from a distance. * Rogue Defenders: The Guardsmen and the White Army are only allied to the GLA out of convenience, and are not part of the GLA itself. The White Army only appears when the GLA is in need of assistance, and cannot be built from GLA Palaces. * Gas Warfare: How the White Guard rebel faction managed to get its hands on a stockpile of chlorine gas shells is unknown; what is known is that these shells are horrendously lethal to infantry unfortunate enough to face White Guard commanders with the authorisation to call them in. Excerpt from "Arabic Postwar Geopolitics" (Hussein Al-Rasheed, 1969) Chapter 13: King Faizal's Gambit Ever since the fall of Iran to Communism, King Faizal had become increasingly afraid of Iran and its potential threat to Saudi Arabia. Despite the existence of Iraq as a buffer state, he became more and more convinced that an Iranian invasion was only a year or even less away. Sources indicate that these fears were fuelled by "prophetic" dreams that the King had during a week of particularly high fevers in August 1967. At a meeting with his family and the top military officers of the White Guard (see chapter 6) he surprisingly declared that the country's military would be put directly under his command and that steps towards "democracy" would be taken rapidly in order to apply for membership in the Allied Nations before April 1968. The King had never before mentioned plans to approach the Allies, and now the country was directed towards a full membership in less than a year, by the King's word which of course equals law in Saudi Arabia. While the plans for a national parliament did not include actual democracy, it would still require unlawful changes in society, such as a minimum of 20% women on the election lists and full rights to every citizen. Despite the King's pledges to not alter the power balance in the country (which he of course had no desire to, as the man with the final say in everything) both many of his sons and the upper echelons in the Saudi White Guard (more often than not the same persons) grew furious at the prospect of an alliance with non-Islamic and imperialist Western countries. In secret, anger with the King grew and became organized, with several sons of King Faizal meeting with GLA warlords in the vast expanses of the Empty Quarter in eastern Saudi Arabia. Two months after the King's announcement, large parts of the White Guard stormed the King's palace in Riyadh. Only quick reactions and the secret escape tunnels below the palace saved King Faizal from the revolters. Around the nation, the White Guard began fighting amongst themselves, and the GLA came out of hiding in the deserts and joined the usurpers, pushing the frontline back and managing to take control over most of the rich oilfields in the east. Well-equipped Guardsmen of the White Guard, once swearing loyalty to only the King besides Allah, would fight with their functional rifles and professional equipment alongside ragtag undeducated GLA rebels. By New Years' Day 1968, the frontline had stabilized through the desert, from Jordan in the north to Yemen in the south, with the King's army firmly in control of Mecca, Medina and Riyadh while the oil fields lay with the rebels and the GLA. A GLA breakthrough attempt in the summer of 1968 was only halted by Allied reinforcements, although relatively small in number thanks to World War III, and most of the war since then has been guerrilla warfare. Behind the Scenes * The Guardsman is an accepted suggestion by TLhikan Category:Units